With a fine touch, Aida Bamia has explored the work of Muhammad Ben al-Tayyib 'Alili (c.1894-c.1954), a hither to virtually unknown malhun (oral poet) of Algeria, bringing to her analysis new understanding of folksongs as part of a people's collective memory and their resistance to colonization

Avatarium formed barely 2 years ago but already word is spreading rapidly about this unique band and it's special blend of heavy adventurous music. Jethro Tull….Blue Oyster Cult…Sabbath…Rainbow…. It's all there together with some delicate moments of beauty and fragments of pop and 60's psychedelia. It all began last winter when the mainman of seminal Swedish doomsters Candlemass,Leif Edling needed help to demo a couple of songs he was working on. Weeks turned into months and a few songs became a full length album with Lars Sköld, a good friend of Leif and skinbeater extraordinarie, being recuited on drums…

All her life, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love's death. She doesn't believe in true love and never thought this would be a problem, but as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she's not so sure anymore.

AVATARIUM, the Swedish metal project whose recording lineup includes Leif Edling, founding bassist and main songwriter of Swedish doom metal legends CANDLEMASS, release its new album, "The Girl With The Raven Mask", on October 23 via Nuclear Blast. Edling states about the CD: "I think we have created something unique this time with AVATARIUM. The songs are more written to be just songs and there are some really nice moments on the record that I personally love… the straightforward title track, the beautiful 'January Sea', the riff in 'Ghostlight' and the groove in 'Run Killer Run'. The organ and the Rhodes piano are ridiculously loud in the mix at times; even Dr. Carl agrees [laughs], but i think it gives even more edge to the songs! I hope people will dig 'The Girl With The Raven Mask' as much as I do myself, and if they don't, it's their problem. A band can't deliver more than we have done here, so it is an album close to perfection! When an album is perfect… shoot me!"

Third solo album from the highly respected British Prog artist, producer and member of Porcupine Tree and No Man amongst others. The Raven That Refused To Sing (And Other Stories) was written between January and July and recorded in Los Angeles in September.The record has been engineered by legendary producer/engineer Alan Parsons and consists of six songs, three of which are 10 minute plus epics and are based on stories of the supernatural.

Leschak ( Letters from Side Lake ) opens this collection of essays–reprinted from Country Journal , the New York Times , etc.–with a fantasy of his dying in the snow with ravens acting as funeral directors.